This invention involves an apparatus and process for drying various grains in situ, primarily within truck or semi-trailer grain bodies. The process and apparatus of this invention avoid the expensive prior art methods utilized in drying grains which involve a high degree of labor and/or equipment or both to dry the grains. Conventional equipment involves unloading the grain and flowing it through a drying apparatus which necessarily is labor and time consuming. In addition, prior art conventional methods create substantial noise, dust, pollution, and the like. This invention is particularly useful in view of the recent government export regulations regarding reduced moisture content in exported grains.
The process and apparatus of this invention involve very little new equipment as conventional grain bodies can be modified for drying purposes during the grain harvesting season and then the grain body utilized for other purposes by removal of the added equipment which includes only the duct means and its supporting means and the perforated side panels.
This invention represents a major advance in the grain drying art by virtue of its simplicity of design, its labor saving benefits, and the overall inexpensive nature of the process and apparatus in order to carry out the invention as taught and claimed herein. Other prior art drying methods and equipment involve large plenum chambers beneath the floors along with perforated floors, various agitating means, and the like. In the process and apparatus of this invention, air is heated and placed under pressure exterior of the grain body, and it is conducted through duct means into the interior of the grain body. The grain body has perforated side panels to provide for the heated air to flow laterally outwardly from the perforated duct means to and through the perforated side panels and upwardly through the flue means defined by the space between the perforated side panels and the conventional side panels of the grain bin or grain body. It is important that the distance from the duct means to the grain surface is greater than the distance from the duct means to each perforated side panel. This provides for substantial lateral flow of the heated air between the duct means and the perforated side panels and for some vertical type flow of the hot air from the duct to the grain surface whereby the moisture laden air then exits upwardly from the flue space and away from the grain body.